Unit 3, Lecture 5: Quality of Work Life QUALITY OF WORK LIFE

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Quality of Work Life

• Prof. John Kammeyer-Mueller
• MGT 4301

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Plan

• Where we are
• Understand what motivates workers in general
• Where we want to be
• Understand how health and stress work into the
  picture of employee satisfaction and engagement
• How we know how were doing
• How does stress tend to affect employee
  performance?
• What are the consequences of employee safety and
  health?
• What is OSHA and how does it regulate the
  structure and function of the workplace?

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Safety, Health, Stress and the Bottom Line

• Why should employers care about employee safety
  and health as a performance management issue?
• What responsibilities do employers have to look
  out for their employees well being?

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Safety, Health, Stress and the Bottom Line

• Physiological
• Increased use of sick days and vacations
• Low levels of energy and motivation
• Drug/alcohol abuse symptoms
• Psychological
• Difficulty concentrating
• Reduced creative output
• Dissatisfaction and resentment
• Behavioral
• Lower performance
• Anger and violence toward co-workers
• More grievances in union settings

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Stress at Work

• Think about the ways that the workplace or school
  can be stressful
• How do you personally cope with these stressors?
• What does your organization do to help reduce the
  extent to which you experience stress?

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Integras 2000 Survey Showed

• 65 of workers said that workplace stress had
  caused difficulties
• 10 said they work in an atmosphere where
  physical violence has occurred because of job
  stress
• 29 had yelled at co-workers because of workplace
  stress
• 14 said they work where machinery or equipment
  has been damaged because of workplace rage
• 2 admitted that they had actually personally
  struck someone
• 19 had quit a previous position because of job
  stress
• 62 routinely find that they end the day with
  work-related neck pain
• 44 reported stressed-out eyes
• 38 complained of hurting hands
• 34 reported difficulty in sleeping because they
  were too stressed-out
• 12 had called in sick because of job stress

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What are the Most Prevalent Stressors in the
Workplace?

• On the job
• Job or task demands, like workload and
  responsibility
• Interpersonal conflict
• Management practices
• Physical risks
• Off the job
• Financial distress
• Childcare needs
• Source NIOSH Publication No. 2008136, Exposure
  to Stress Occupational Hazards in Hospitals

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Work-Life Conflict as a Stressor

• Definition
• Competing demands from work and family roles
• Became a larger issue when dual career couples
  and shifting expectations for family life
  increased
• Examples of conflicts include scheduling
  problems, exhaustion, taking home to work with
  you, and taking work home with you
• Stress isnt compartmentalized
• Stress at work leads to stress at home
• Stress at home leads to stress at work

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Work-Life Conflict as a Stressor

• Research investigating negative work-family
  conflicts
• Examined over 18,000 Finnish workers
• Medically certified absences as an outcome
  variable, with self-reported work-family conflict
  as a predictor
• Results
• Those who reported high levels of work-family
  conflicts took 1.4 times more certified sickness
  absences than those who reported low levels of
  work-family conflicts
• Effects were especially strong among blue-collar
  and lower level white-collar workers
• Source Vaananen et al., Work-Family
  Characteristics as a Predictor of Sickness
  Absence, JOHP, 2008

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Work-Life Conflict as a Stressor

• Research investigating work-life conflicts
• Examined database of 1,367 individuals working in
  126 different occupations
• Surveys were conducted over a number of years
• Occupational demands that increased work-life
  conflict
• Work that is highly interdependent
• Responsibility for others
• Inflexible schedules
• Strong time demands
• Home demands that increase work-life conflict
• Number of children
• Source Dierdorff and Ellington, Its the Nature
  of the Work, JAP, 2008

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Physical Stages of the Stress Response

• The biological stress response is studied by
  removing glands from animals and injecting them
  with hormones to determine when and how various
  physiological responses are produced
• These mechanisms have been found in all mammals,
  and analogous mechanisms found in many animals
  without these basic systems of response

Stressor
Hypothalamus and pituitary
Adrenal
Thymus lymph node
White blood cells
Stomach
Notice that the nervous system is not involved at
all. The stress reaction described by Selye is
entirely an action of the endocrine system.
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Terminology for Stress Researchers

• Stress
• A non-specific physical response to a large
  variety of both positive and negative
  environmental pressures
• Eustress good stress, associated with challenges
  and pressures that can be met
• Distress bad stress, associated with hindrances
  and problems that cannot be resolved in a
  satisfactory way
• Stressor
• Something in the environment which is perceived
  as either a threat or opportunity
• Strain
• The negative physical and emotional consequences
  of exposure to stressors

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Important Stress Concepts

• Hindrance stressors
• Induced by hassles, boredom, red tape, confusion
  about responsibilities, and other factors that
  reduce productive responses
• Related to negative physical symptoms,
  dissatisfaction, and poor performance

• Challenge stressors
• Induced by difficult assignments, pressure to
  perform, autonomy, and other factors that
  increase productive responses
• Related to satisfaction and positive performance

Both produce physiological arousal and
psychological tension the difference is in
interpretation and resolution of stressors
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Reacting to Stress Coping

• Primary appraisal
• Severity of problem
• Immediacy

• Immediate effects
• Physiological
• Emotional
• Behavioral
• Enduring effects
• Physical health
• Mood/well-being
• Social effects

• Coping response
• Problem-focused
• Emotion-focused
• Avoidance

• Secondary appraisal
• Personal resources
• Available assistance

Lazarus, Delongis, Folkman and Gruen, 1985
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What Makes Stress Less Stressful?

• Predictability
• Individuals in central London during WWII
  experienced only low grade stress illness in
  response to bombings those in the suburbs, who
  experienced infrequent and unpredictable
  bombings, had more stress-related illnesses
• Individuals who are undergoing challenging
  working conditions (e.g., soldiers, police)
  initially show the full set of physiological
  shifts related to stress, but with repeated
  exposure, arousal decreases as the organism
  habituates

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What Makes Stress Less Stressful?

• Control
• Rats who have a lever to turn off shock
  experience much less stress than those who are
  shocked for the same duration without a lever
• If you take the lever away from a rat who is used
  to it, stress goes through the roof
• Similar results with humans exposed to very loud
  noises
• Verified in occupational samples demands are
  much less related to strain when control is high

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Control and Stress

• Demands
• Workload
• Time deadlines
• Physical demands
• Control (lack of)
• Ambiguity
• Threat of termination
• Lack of participation opportunities

Level of Stress
Low control
High control
Level of Demand
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What Makes Stress Less Stressful?

• Outlets for stress
• Rats who are shocked are less likely to get
  ulcers if they have a piece of wood to gnaw on
• Rats who are shocked will attack other rats in
  present, which also reduces stress in the short
  run
• This appears to satisfy the fight or flight
  urge
• Also found for physical exercise among humans
• the most reliable technique for reducing the
  relationship between stressors and physical
  symptoms of stress illness
• Source Why Zebras Dont Get Ulcers

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What Makes Stress Less Stressful?

• Social contact
• Among baboons, the physiological response to
  stressors is much lower for those who have
  frequent social interactions
• Similarly, among humans, responses to stress
  (including depression, heart disease, ulcers, and
  even mortality) are less acute among those who
  have a social support network

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Discrete Reactions to Events Social Support and
Buffering
Perceived Demand
Level of Stress
Low support
Low support
High support
High support
Level of Demand
Perceived Demand
Buffer Effect
Direct Effect
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So, to Summarize

• If you can predict and control a situation,
  youre less likely to experience strain
• If you have an opportunity to express your
  stress, either physically or socially, youre
  less likely to experience strain
• How can this be useful to managers?

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Coping Mechanisms to Reduce Stress

• Problem focused coping
• Directly attempting to change the sources of
  stress
• Examples include working harder, discussing
  problems with people who can fix the problem, or
  quitting
• Reappraisal/emotion coping
• Focusing on changing the appraisals
• Focusing on your strengths and capabilities,
  trying to consider the opportunities, and
  discussing issues with others just for a release
• Avoidance
• Focus is entirely on reducing symptoms
• Trying not to think about the problem,
  fantasizing about alternatives, drinking, drug use

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NIOSH Recommendations for Stress Reduction
Programs

• Primary appraisal focus
• Problem solving (i.e. cognitive psychology)
• Time management
• Secondary appraisal focus
• Relaxation training
• Interpersonal training
• Coping focus
• Training people about methods to reduce stress

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Creating a Stress Reduction Program

• Develop a program for reducing stress among
  university students in small groups
• What will you do to improve primary appraisals of
  stress?
• What will you do to improve secondary appraisals
  of stress?
• How will you use social buffers?
• Think back to measurement and training
• What are the things you want to improve?
• How will you measure the effects of this program?

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Important Reminders for Stress Reduction

• Conduct focus groups and surveys first
• Dont just copy what someone else needed to do
• Make certain youre not just trend-hopping
• Ensure that continuous monitoring is provided
• Is the intervention actually successful?
• Does the intervention work long-term?
• Be prepared to modify the system over time
• Recognize that eliminating stress is a bad idea
• Probably impossible to achieve
• Stress motivates action

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Data on Occupational Safety and Health

• In a typical year
• there are over 1 million cases of occupational
  injury and illnesses requiring lost work time
• nearly 6,000 people have fatal occupational
  injuries
• nearly half of all fatal workplace injuries are
  in construction and extraction (i.e. mining) or
  transportation and material moving (e.g.,
  trucking, driving, rail, flight) industries
• there are between 400-500 homicides on the job
• note that per capita injury rates are declining
  over time
• Source Bureau of Labor Statistics

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Differences in Injury Rates by Ethnicity and
Gender
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Differences in Injury Rates by Education Levels
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Legal Requirements for Safety and Health OSHA

• Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970)
• To assure safe and healthful working conditions
  for working men and women by authorizing
  enforcement of the standards developed under the
  Act by assisting and encouraging the States in
  their efforts to assure safe and healthful
  working conditions by providing for research,
  information, education, and training in the field
  of occupational safety and health and for other
  purposes.
• The Congress finds that personal injuries and
  illnesses arising out of work situations impose a
  substantial burden upon, and are a hindrance to,
  interstate commerce in terms of lost production,
  wage loss, medical expenses, and disability
  compensation payments.
• Offsets a potential legal and economic quagmire
• Companies can save money by investing less in
  safety and health practices
• Because of the workers compensation system,
  employers cannot be sued by workers who are
  injured

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Legal Requirements for Safety and Health OSHA

• Some of the major workplace changes brought about
  by OSHA
• Guards on all moving parts of equipment
• Limits on employee exposure to chemicals and
  requirement to inform employees about exposure to
  hazardous chemicals
• Requirements for personal protecting equipment
  (e.g., respirators, gloves, goggles, ear
  protection)
• Requirements to avoid bloodborne pathogens in
  healthcare

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Some of Your Rights Under OSHA

• You have the right to notify your employer or
  OSHA about workplace hazards. You may ask OSHA to
  keep your name confidential.
• You have the right to request an OSHA inspection
  if you believe that there are unsafe and
  unhealthful conditions in your workplace.
• You can file a complaint with OSHA within 30 days
  of retaliation or discrimination by your employer
  for making safety and health complaints or for
  exercising your rights under the OSH Act.
• You have a right to see OSHA citations issued to
  your employer.
• Your employer must correct workplace hazards by
  the date indicated on the citation and must
  certify that these hazards have been reduced or
  eliminated.
• Source OSHA Workplace Poster

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Reducing Hazards in the Workplace Safety
Interventions

• Types of safety and health interventions commonly
  provided
• Ergonomic training
• Safe use of equipment
• Violence prevention
• Defensive driving
• Employee assistance programs
• Stress reduction

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The Importance of Climate in Improving Safety
Behavior

• A climate for safety reflects employee responses
  to safety rules and regulations
• Do employees agree with the policies and
  procedures?
• Do they believe these policies are for their
  benefit?
• Do they see these policies and procedures as a
  hassle?
• Climate for safety is a result of
• Organizational attitudes towards safety and
  health
• Supervisor behavior encouraging safety
• Organizational routinization and formalization

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Zohar and Luria Study

• Research design
• Measure supervisor safety facilitation,
  organizational policies, and observations of
  employee safety behaviors from 401 work units in
  36 different companies
• Results showed
• Climate for safety at a local level affects
  employee behaviors BUT
• A strong organizational climate reduced
  variability across work units
• Routinization and formalization of safety
  procedures also reduce variability, but not as
  much as organizational climate
• What does this imply for managers?
• Source Zohar and Luria, Multilevel model of
  safety climate, JAP, 2005

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Wrap Up

• Where we are
• Understand how companies establish pay policies
  for jobs
• Understand how companies provide benefits for
  employees
• Where we want to be
• Understand how pay can be modified to fit the
  individual
• How we know how were doing
• What do each of the following theories say about
  incentive compensation plans?
• Expectancy
• Agency
• Goal setting
• Cognitive evaluation
• Risk aversion